JfoluMi  ]?.  Gonoheiif 


COPYRIGHT,  1885,  BY 

THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE 

PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION. 


All  Rights  Reserved. 


Westcott  A Thomson, 
Stereotype rt  and  Klectroty}ters , Phi  Lada. 


John  F.  Gonchor 

Number 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


The  theology  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  is 
reasonably  well  settled.  Occasionally  some  egotis- 
tic malcontent  proposes  to  reconstruct  the  moral 
universe  after  original  designs  furnished  by  him- 
self, but  our  substantial  people  readily  detect  his 
“ new  truth  ” as  simply  an  old  error.  Such  soon 
go  or  are  sent  to  their  own  place,  and  the  Church 
has  rest.  So  also  the  practical  policy  of  the  Church 
is  well  settled.  The  discussions  that  now  arise  are 
not  as  to  principles,  but  as  to  the  most  effective 
methods  of  their  application.  Out  of  all  the 
numerous  good  ways  the  inquiry  is  for  the  best 
way  of  bringing  the  world  to  Christ.  In  these 
circumstances  you  will  justify  one  who  has  had 
his  work  assigned  in  the  field,  and  not  in  the 
study,  in  asking  you  to  join  in  a discussion  of  the 
business  side  of  our  present  church -work.  The 
theme  is 


3 


4 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


SOME  HISTORICAL  LESSONS  FROM  ANGLO- 
SAXON  MISSIONS. 

The  texts  are  two : 

Isa.  li.  1 : “Look  unto  the  rock  whence  ye  are 
hewn,  and  to  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  ye  arc 
digged 

Rom.  i.  14 : “I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks 
and  to  the  Barbarians,  both  to  the  wise  and  to  the 
unwise.” 

The  apostle  Paul  is  commonly  looked  upon  as 
the  typical  foreign  missionary.  As  a fact,  Paul 
never  set  his  feet  upou  foreign  soil.  That  Roman 
empire  of  which  he  was  a free-born  citizen  iu  his 
day  encircled  the  Mediterranean,  reaching  from  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube  to  the  African  desert,  and 
from  the  Solway  Firth  to  the  Euphrates.  In 
reality,  as  burdened  with  the  care  of  all  (Ik* 
churches,  Paul  was  the  original  secretary  of  the 
home  board.  The  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  was 
an  extended  receipt  for  a liberal  donation,  and  the 
eighth  and  ninth  chapters  of  Second  Corinthians, 
as  written  in  the  autumn  of  A.  D.  57,  were  an 
appeal  for  a good  November  collection.  If,  there- 
fore, there  was  anv  substantial  foundation  for  that 
shadowy  tradition  that  Christianity  was  introduced 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


5 


into  Britain  by  the  apostle  Paul  himself,  he  was 
still  in  the  home  field.  But  whether  by  returned 
captives,  traveling  merchantmen,  Roman  soldiers 
or  by  genuine  missionaries,  the  Keltic  tribes  ot‘ 
Britain  undoubtedly  were  evangelized  while  they 
were  yet  subjects  of  Rome.  If  any  Keltic  blood, 
therefore,  runs  in  your  veins,  descended  from  the 
original  Britons,  the  Scots  of  Ireland  or  the  Piets 
of  Scotland,  you  ai'e  indebted  to  home-mission 
effort  for  your  religion. 

As,  however,  Britain  was  the  last  country  Rome 
captured,  so  it  was  the  first  she  flung  away  when 
her  infirmities  and  her  foes  attacked  her  together. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  fifth  century  her  legions 
took  their  departure,  aud  left  all  doors  open.  The 
Piets  came  down  from  the  North,  and  the  Saxons 
came  over  from  the  East.  When  Vortigern  called 
for  the  Saxous  to  deliver  him  from  the  Piets,  he 
and  his  tribes  only  crept  from  under  the  paw  of 
the  bear  into  the  jaws  of  the  lion.  As  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  races  did  on  this  continent  with  the  American 
Indians,  so  the  Angles,  the  Saxons  and  the  Jutes 
did  in  Britain.  They  began  at  the  sea  and  wiped 
the  land  clean.  Roman  and  Keltic  cities,  civiliza- 
tion and  Christianity,  perished  with  the  people,  and 


6 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


barbarism,  savagery  and  Druidism  took  their  place. 
These  Anglo-Saxons  were  our  ancestry.  Forget- 
ting this  in  our  self-conceit,  we  complacently  shut 
our  pockets  and  ask  if  home  aud  foreign  missions 
amount  to  anything.  England  and  America  are 
the  answer.  Our  common  ancestry,  whether  Kelts, 
Angles,  Saxons,  Jutes,  Norsemen  or  Danes,  were 
heathenish  Druids  as  to  their  religion.  Except  for 
Christian  missions,  this  Assembly  would  be  gath- 
ered for  the  adoration  of  Woden  in  hope  of  enter- 
ing Valhalla. 


Druidism. 

What,  now,  is  Druidism  ? The  materials  are 
scant  for  attaining  certainty,  but  on  the  two  things 
which  fix  the  character  of  a religion,  its  sacrifices 
and  its  heaven,  we  have  enough  to  measure  its 
moral  level.  It  was  a worship  of  nature.  Each 
day  had  its  several  god.  When  Christianity 
entered  it  was  with  instructions  to  change  as  little 
as  possible,  and  so  the  days  of  the  week  still  bear 
their  Druid  names.  Our  Sabbath  was  their  Sun- 
day. The  next  day  was  their  Moon-dav.  The 
next  day  they  worshiped  Twi,  their  god  of  war. 
Then  came  their  worship  of  Woden,  their  principal 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


7 


deity.  Thor  was  their  god  of  thunder,  and  gives 
name  to  Thursday.  Friga  was  Woden’s  wife  and 
their  god  of  fruitfulness,  to  which  Friday  refers. 
Saeter  was  their  water-deity,  with  whose  worship 
the  week  closes.  Even  our  annual  celebration  of 
Christ’s  resurrection  is  named  Easter  after  their 
god  Eostere.  So  long  as  these  names  are  used  we 
cannot  deny  our  heathen  origin. 

How,  now,  were  these  deities  of  the  wood  and 
water  propitiated?  All  authorities  on  Druidism 
concur  in  saving  that  “sacrifices  formed  a chief 
part  of  the  Keltic  religion.  Human  sacrifices  were 
frequent,  being  regarded  as  the  most  effectual  and 
acceptable  way  of  appeasing  the  gods.  In  behalf 
of  the  state  also  the  Druids  offered  human  sacrifices. 
Great  figures  in  human  form,  made  of  wickerwork, 
were  filled  with  human  beings  and  then  set  on  fire. 
The  sacrifices  of  criminals  were  esteemed  especially 
grateful  to  the  deity.  When  they  were  lacking 
innocent  persons  were  offered  up.  The  custom 
also  prevailed  of  sacrificing  all  prisoners  of  war, 
accompanying  the  dreadful  offering  with  loud  songs 
and  wild  music,  and  out  of  the  flowing  blood  and 
quivering  members  to  divine  the  future.”  Sinding 
in  his  work  on  the  Scandinavian  races  asserts  that 


8 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROOK. 


the  worshipers  of  Woden  were  at  times  cannibals. 
The  Sagas  say  that  if  the  gods  expressed  their  anger 
with  the  people  by  scarcity  or  ill-success  in  war, 
the  most  acceptable  offering  was  the  king.  That 
this  was  not  done  in  anger  at  the  king  is  shown  bv 
the  fact  that  they  did  not  interfere  with  the  succes- 
sion in  the  son  of  the  sacrificed  king.  We  catch 
one  more  glimpse  of  the  utter  degradation  of  our 
ancestors  in  this  Druidical  religion  as  history 
describes  its  three  classes  of  prophetesses,  one  of 
which  revealed  the  future  only  to  such  men  as  had 
defiled  them.  The  worship  of  ancient  Baal  and 
Moloch  and  the  appeasing  of  modern  Juggernauts 
and  African  fetiches  were  not  more  inhuman  than 
this.  These  last  religions  offered  up  either  the 
unconscious  children  or  the  fanatical  devotees,  but 
this  religion  thought  to  secure  the  favor  of  its 
deities  by  burnt-offerings  of  adult  human  beings, 
such  as  prisoners  of  war,  arrested  criminals  and 
innocent  neighbors.  Prof.  Thos.  Smith,  Duff 
Missionary  Lecturer  in  Edinburgh,  justly  says: 
“ The  Britons,  before  the  gospel  was  brought  to 
them,  were  not  at  all  in  advance  of  the  Central- 
African  tribes  of  our  own  day.” 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


9 


Dkujd  Heaven. 

As  we  have  said,  however,  there  is  another  meas- 
ure of  the  character  of  a religion.  As  its  deities 
and  their  worship  are  the  highest  conceptions  and 
aspirations  which  it  develops,  so  the  heaven  to 
which  it  looks  forward  is  its  ideal  of  perfect  society. 
Herein  is  the  self-confessed  condemnation  of  false 
religions.  The  perfect  future  of  the  American 
Indian  is  simply  the  happy  hunting-ground.  The 
Buddhist  perfection  is  unconsciousness  in  Nirvana. 
In  Mohammedanism  the  hope  of  eternity  is  an 
unlimited  harem.  What,  now,  was  the  Druids’ 
heaven?  It  was  simply  the  outcome  of  their 
theory  of  virtue.  As  their  manliest  man  was  the 
resistless  warrior,  so  their  heaven,  Valhalla,  was 
a place  of  perpetual  combat,  with  its  shoutings  and 
wounds  and  triumphs.  At  sunset  every  wound 
was  healed  and  they  were  ready  for  a night  of 
revelry.  And  such  a night ! In  an  awful  hall, 
which  had  five  hundred  and  forty  gates  through 
which  eight  hundred  men  could  enter  abreast,  they 
sat  down  to  a grim  and  hideous  banquet.  There 
they  feasted  on  a great  boar,  Sahrimner,  whose 
flesh  never  diminished  however  much  they  ate. 
These  savory  morsels  they  cut  off  with  their  dag- 


10 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


gers,  and  when  they  had  satisfied  themselves  they 
washed  all  down  with  deep  draughts  of  mead. 
The  cups  from  which  they  drank  were  the  skulls 
of  their  enemies.  This  last  is  by  some  denied,  but 
no  better  translation  is  given  of  an  admittedly 
obscure  passage.  This  was  the  heaven  of  the 
saved.  The  lost  were  the  cowards.  “ They  were 
doomed  to  dwell  in  the  dark  regions  of  Niflheim, 
where  Hela  the  terrible  reigned.  There  gaunt 
Famine  stalked  like  a shadow  beneath  the  vaulted 
dome,  and  Anguish  writhed  upon  her  hard  bed, 
while  dark  Delay  kept  watch  against  the  sombre 
doors  which  she  never  opened.”  These  were  their 
eternities,  into  which  there  is  no  evidence  that 
woman  could  ever  enter.  The  waiters  at  that 
night  of  revelry  in  Valhalla  were  indeed  the 
Valkaries,  or  fairies,  but  they  were  not  glorified 
women.  They  were  but  the  Shieldmaidens,  who 
amidst  the  battle  picked  out  the  brave  for  death, 
and  after  death  conducted  them  to  Valhalla.  In 
Valhalla  these  Shieldmaidens  acted  as  waiters,  and 
regaled  the  warriors  with  stories  of  fighting  and 
with  unlimited  liquor.  For  their  women  there 
seems  to  have  been  no  hope  of  a hereafter.  There 
is  not  one  element  of  a degrading  religion  wanting 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


11 


in  the  sad  picture.  If,  now,  the  missionary  spirit 
of  the  Bible  saveil  our  race,  it  can  save  any  race  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  To  me  nearly  all  through 
the  literature  of  our  women’s  work  for  women 
there  runs  a cei'tain  self-sacrificing  sentimentalism 
of  romance,  as  if  only  other  races  consigned  their 
women  to  annihilation,  and  that  the  point  of  the 
thanksgiving  of  the  praise-meeting  was  exclusively 
for  the  race  to  which  our  lot  was  assigned.  That 
fancy  let  us  dismiss.  Our  ancestral  mothers  went 
down  to  a tomb  as  blank  and  dark  as  that  of  the 
Hindoo  widow  or  the  Moslem  concubine.  All  that 
mother,  wife,  sister,  daughter  are  to  us  in  the  line 
of  religious  faith  as  men,  and  all  the  world  of  hope 
hereafter  that  these  words  open  to  you  as  women, 
is  ours  by  virtue  of  the  success  of  the  foreign  mis- 
sions to  our  ancestors.  Precisely  what  the  Bible 
has  to  do  for  the  women  of  other  races  it  had  to  do 
for  the  women  of  our  own  race;  and  there  is  not 
a reason  why  that  Christ  whose  redemption  made 
the  women  of  America  and  of  England  out  of  the 
daughters  of  the  Druids  of  Britain,  Ireland  and 
Scotland  will  not  make  as  refined  and  cultured 
women  out  of  the  daughters  of  Corea  and  Mad- 
agascar. Shall  not  the  converted  Chinese  women 


12 


OUR  riT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


be  zealous  missionaries?  Being  saved,  shall  they 
not  seek  to  save?  But  that  argument  comes  with 
exactly  the  same  force  to  us  and  ours.  If,  then, 
any  shall  ask  what  missions  have  amounted  to  any- 
thing, we  are  bound  to  x'eply  : “ It  made  out  of  the 
brutal  Druids,  who  worshiped  Woden  with  human 
sacrifices,  the  English-speaking  nations  of  to-day.” 
Whatever  else  mission-work  has  done  or  failed  to 
do,  it  made  us.  It  does  not  lie  in  our  lips  to  sneer. 

England’s  Conversion. 

As  the  materials  are  scant  to  show  what  domestic 
Druidism  was,  so  they  are  scant  to  show  us  how 
long  it  took  Christianity  to  regenerate  heathen 
Britain.  It  is  certain  that  Christianity  was  intro- 
duced into  Britain  as  early  as  the  third  century,  for 
Helena,  Constantine’s  mother,  was  a Christian,  and 
Christian  bishops  were  present  at  the  Synods  of 
Arles,  31 1 ; Sardica,  347 ; and  Rimini,  359.  Out 
of  this  early  Christianity  came  that  Keltic  religion 
from  which,  in  the  fifth  and  the  sixth  century,  came 
the  Culdees,  Colomba,  St.  Patrick  and  the  rest. 
But  the  proof  amounts  to  demonstration  that  it 
only  achieved  a very  limited  success  when  we  re- 
member that  not  a single  ruin,  remnant  or  mark  of 


OUR  PIT  AM)  OUR  ROCK. 


13 


its  presence  has  been  discovered  in  England  after 
the  most  careful  research.  When  the  Romans 
withdrew  and  the  heathen  Saxons  came,  Chris- 
tianity utterly  perished  where  they  conquered. 
What  Christians  were  there  were  either  killed  or 
driven  west  into  Wales.  The  whole  region  became 
pagan.  This  occurred  in  no  other  Roman  province 
captured  by  the  Northern  hordes.  Jt  could  not 
have  happened  in  Britain  if,  during  its  more  than 
two  centuries  of  work,  Christianity  had  become  the 
general  religion  of  the  nation.  Some  ruins  of 
churches,  some  mementos  of  some  kind,  would 
have  been  left  if  it  had  generally  prevailed.  It  is 
all  a fancy  that  these  Keltic  Druids  were  a people 
predisposed  to  Christianity  either  by  their  race- 
peculiarities  or  their  religious  institutions. 

The  Romans  withdrew  about  410  to  425,  and  the 
first  main  advent  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  about 
449  to  450.  From  that  time  till  the  arrival  of 
Augustine,  in  597  or  598,  England  was  heathen 
territory.  Much  discussion  has  arisen  over 
Gregory’s  motive  in  sending  Augustine,  but  the 
charge  of  unchristian  selfishness  and  ambition  falls 
in  the  presence  of  these  two  facts:  Gregory  had  set 
his  heart  on  going  on  that  mission  himself  before 


14 


OUR  FIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


he  became  pope,  and  sent  Augustine  only  when  he 
could  not  go  himself.  The  well-known  tradition 
of  his  bad  puns  on  seeing  the  Angle  slaves  from 
Deira  shows  this  same  thing.  In  the  next  place, 
England  was  then  on  the  verge  of  the  known 
world,  with  little  intimation  of  its  subsequent  im- 
portance. Kemble,  the  very  first  authority  on 
Anglo-Saxon  matters,  seems  to  me  to  make  out  an 
unanswerable  argument  in  favor  of  the  reasonable 
genuineness  of  the  missionary  spirit  of  both 
Gregory  and  Augustine,  and  justly  calls  Gregory’s 
sending  and  Augustine’s  going  “a  deed  as  heroic 
as  when  Scipio  marched  to  Zama  and  left  the  terrible 
Carthaginians  thundering  at  the  gates  of  the  city.” 
Gregory’s  account  of  Augustine’s  success  is  recorded 
with  the  usual  flourish  of  trumpets.  Several  things 
made  rapid  apparent  progress  practicable.  Augus- 
tine and  his  monks  were  directed  to  assent  to  any- 
thing, provided  the  people  would  submit  to  Rome. 
Druidism  was  simply  for  the  present  baptized.  The 
Keltic  Christians,  localise  they  would  not  submit  to 
Rome,  w'ere  slaughtered.  Moreover,  the  Saxons 
were  not  numerous  and  were  found  in  divided 
tribes.  The  missionaries  made  special  effort  toward 
the  conversion  of  the  petty  kings,  and  one  of  them, 


OUR  ITT  AM)  OUR  ROCK. 


15 


Ethelbert,  the  king  of  Kent,  had  married  Bertha, 
a Christian  Frankish  princess.  She  had  stipulated 
that  she  should  have  her  own  religion.  Besides  all 
this,  Gregory  sent  forty  other  monks,  or  ministers, 
with  Augustine.  Whatever  commerce  England 
then  had  with  the  Continent  was  almost  wholly 
with  the  Christian  half  of  it  in  the  south.  Every- 
thing was  thus  most  favorable  for  rapid  progress. 
Yet,  although  Augustine  was  clothed  with  ample 
powers,  it  was  not  till  seventy-five  years  thereafter, 
under  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  that  the  English  Church 
was  fairly  organized.  It  was  certainly  not  for  a 
hundred  years  still  later  that  there  is  anv  sufficient 
evidence  that  the  people  generally  had  become 
Christians.  One  author  asserts  that  Alfred’s  zeal 
for  the  translation  and  introduction  of  the  Bible 
was  to  promote  the  eradication  of  heathenism. 
Even  so  late  as  the  thirteenth  century  the  Chroni- 
cle of  Lanercost  says  that  Frea  was  worshiped  by 
lascivious  rites.  Tree-worship  and  well-worship 
wrere  so  common  in  the  time  of  Canute  as  to  require 
legal  prohibition.  In  the  year  1055,  Saegaweard 
leaves  on  record  his  fear  of  that  unwarlike  death 
which  by  Druid  superstition  would  prevent  his 
entrance  into  Valhalla.  When,  in  859,  Ethelbald 


16 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


married  his  stepmother  Judith,  his  father  Ethel- 
wulf’s  young  widow,  lie  defended  it  on  the  ground 
of  their  ancestral  religion.  It  is  of  course  impos- 
sible to  fix  an  exact  date.  Druidism  did  not  die 
suddenly,  and  Christianity  did  not  suddenly  take 
its  place.  It  was  a transition  in  which  the  propor- 
tion of  each  was  constantly  changing. 

In  the  presence  of  these  proofs  of  the  slowness 
with  which  the  truth  worked  its  way  among  them, 
how  shall  we  complain  of  want  of  success  because 
one  century  has  not  converted  the  world  ? There 
is  no  adequate  reason  to  believe  that  when  Augustine 
reached  England  there  were  more  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  Anglo-Saxons  accessible  to  him 
and  his  monks.  In  the  day  of  William  the  Con- 
queror (1066)  there  were  less  than  one  million  and 
a quarter  in  that  much  larger  territory  over  which 
he  ruled.  The  emigrant-ships  in  which  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  came  were  mere  keels,  and  not  numerous. 
It  was  impossible  for  them  to  have  carried  passen- 
gers by  the  thousand.  F rom  the  departure  of  the 
Romans  till  Augustine’s  time  was  a period  of  con- 
stant wars.  The  size  of  their  armies  shows  that  the 
population  could  not  have  been  large.  The  slaugh- 
ter in  the  hand-to-hand  fighting  of  olden  warfare 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


17 


was  much  larger  in  proportion  than  it  has  been  with 
modern  firearms.  England  is  now  only  about  the 
size  of  Georgia,  and  of  that  the  Anglo-Saxons  ruled 
only  about  two-thirds.  Of  this  much  was  wood- 
and  marsh-land.  The  Saxons  were  opposed  to  cities, 
and  had  none  of  any  size  for  centuries.  If,  now, 
we  estimate  them  when  Augustine  and  his  forty 
monks  arrived  at  a quarter  of  a million,  at  that  rate 
missions  in  China  should  have  begun  with  fifty- 
seven  thousand  missionaries  to  its  three  hundred 
and  fifty  millions,  instead  of  thirty  at  the  opening 
of  the  five  cities  in  1843.  That  date  is  but  forty- 
two  years  ago,  yet  in  that  less  than  half  a century 
the  missionaries  have  risen  to  four  hundred  and 
fifty  with  about  twenty-five  thousand  communicants. 
Fifteen  out  of  the  eighteen  provinces  of  the  empire 
are  reached  by  the  missionaries.  Give,  now,  such 
progress  in  China  for  two  hundred  years  more,  and 
who  shall  limit  the  results? 

Ireland’s  Conversion. 

But  I think  I hear  some  Irishman  say,  “ Ireland 
at  least  was  not  specially  indebted  to  foreign  mis- 
sions for  her  early  faith.”  No  man  who  knows  his 
country’s  history  would  say  so.  The  Keltic  Chris- 
2 


18 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


tians  of  Britain  were  pushed  back  by  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Druids  till  many  of  them  crossed  over  to 
Ireland.  No  general  conversion  of  Ireland,  how- 
ever, took  place  till  the  days  of  St.  Patrick.  Who, 
now,  was  St.  Patrick?  Not  one  bit  of  what  we 
would  now  call  a Roman  Catholic,  but  a genuine 
Protestant  and  Presbyterian  from  the  region  of 
Dumbarton,  Scotland.  For  our  purpose  the  dis- 
cussion whether  St.  Patrick  did  or  did  not  come 
from  the  Continent  is  unimportant.  In  any  event, 
he  was  a foreign  missionary  in  Ireland.  I accept 
the  generally  received  account  of  his  being  kid- 
napped by  pirates  as  a boy  of  fifteen  and  sold  into 
slavery  in  Ireland.  In  due  course  of  time  he  ran 
away,  and,  being  converted,  in  the  spirit  of  the  true 
Scotch  missionary  he  went  right  back  to  Ireland 
to  preach  the  simple  Bible  truth  to  his  captors. 
Well  may  Ireland  and  the  Irish  cherish  the  memory 
of  their  Scotch  missionary,  by  whose  burning  words 
that  gospel  was  prevailingly  preached  which  alone 
can  drive  the  Old  Serpent  out  of  that  green  island. 
With  the  doctrine,  skill  and  zeal  of  a Paul,  for 
forty-five  years  this  Scotchman  toiled  and  traveled 
and  preached  to  those  who  had  enslaved  him. 


OUR  ri'T  ANI)  OUR  ROCK. 


19 


Scotland’s  Conversion. 

Surely,  then,  says  our  Scotch  membership,  we  are 
indebted  to  no  foreigners  for  the  orthodoxy  of  our 
Presbyterianism.  Here,  again,  is  a notable  mis- 
take. As  has  been  said,  the  Keltic  Christians, 
driven  back  and  north  by  the  Anglo-Saxons,  car- 
ried with  them  that  form  of  doctrine  and  govern- 
ment which  they  had  received  from  the  early  Fa- 
thers while  Britain  was  yet  a Roman  province.  If 
apostolic  succession  amounted  to  anything,  Presby- 
terians could  establish  the  very  best  claim  thereto, 
through  Colomba  and  the  Culdees.  I say  the  very 
best  claim,  because, -in  addition  to  that  chronological 
continuity  which  it  can  show  alike  with  the  Rom- 
ish Church,  it  could  also  show  what  Romanism  can- 
not show — identity  of  doctrine  and  worship  all  the 
way  down  the  ages.  The  Culdee  Scotch  Church 
was  never  deformed  by  celibacy  and  adultery,  ab- 
solution and  indulgence,  trausubstantiation,  image- 
worship  and  Mariolatry.  As  it  was  never  deformed, 
it  was  never  reformed.  The  Culdees  were,  indeed, 
almost  lost  sight  of  for  a time,  except  as  they  are 
alluded  to  in  history  as  heretics ; but  when  the 
continental  Reformation  came  they  revived.  It 
was  not  a reformation  in  Scotland.  It  was  onlv 


20 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


a reappearance.  John  Knox  was  only  Colomba 
resurrected. 

Who,  now,  was  Colomba,  the  founder  of  the  es- 
tablishment at  Iona  and  the  great  monumental  man 
in  that  heroic  missionary  Church  of  the  Culdees? 
As  if  to  compel  every  English-speaking  people  to 
confess  their  obligation  to  the  Christians  of  other 
lands,  Colomba  was,  in  the  providence  of  God,  an 
Irishman.  Born  in  Donegal  about  521,  he  crossed 
over  to  Iona  about  560,  and  went  to  those  in  dark- 
ness in  the  north  of  Scotland.  So  did  he  and  his 
successors  inspire  their  members  with  missionary 
zeal  that  it  was  for  a time  doubtful  whether  the 
Romish  missions  would  get  control  of  the  islands 
or  Culdee  missions  get  control  of  the  Continent. 
The  outcome  was  that  Romanism  nominally  held 
England  till  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.,  and  essen- 
tial Presbyterianism  has  always  held  Scotland. 

Comparative  Progress. 

In  the  general  wav,  therefore,  the  Christian  re- 
ligion entered  the  British  Islands  about  the  end  of 
the  second  century,  and  about  the  eighth  century 
became  the  generally  accepted  religion  of  the  peo- 
ple. This  was  six  hundred  years  of  labor  under 


OUR  riT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


21 


reasonably  favorable  conditions.  Modern  missions 
are  not  yet  two  centuries  old.  Give  them  four 
centuries  more  of  such  success  as  they  have  achieved 
in  their  first  centuries,  and  where  will  heathenism 
then  be?  But  even  leaving  out  of  account  all  that 
was  done  iu  Britain  before  the  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
quest, and  fix  the  time  at  two  hundred  years,  and 
in  the  same  way  fix  modern  missions  as  in  reality 
beginning  with  this  century,  and  it  will  show  that 
modern  nations  are  much  more  tractable  than  our 
own  ancestors.  In  1800  there  were  but  seventy 
missionaries  from  all  Christian  lands  for  the  whole 
heathen  world.  To-day  there  are  full  five  thou- 
sand missionaries,  of  which  one-half  are  ordained 
ministers  and  the  other  half  are  laymen,  wives  of 
missionaries  and  single  women  missionaries.  To 
these  five  thousand  missionaries  are  to  be  added 
about  thirty  thousand  native  ministers,  helpers, 
evangelists,  colporteurs  and  Bible-readers.  We 
have  now  at  least  five  hundred  thousand  native 
church-members,  and  over  twelve  thousand  schools 
with  four  hundred  thousand  scholars.  In  Europe 
and  America  there  are  above  one  hundred  and  fif- 
ty missionary  societies,  and  the  circulation  of  the 
Bible  has  grown  in  this  century  from  fifty  transla- 


22 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


tions  and  five  million  copies  at  the  opening  of  the 
century  to  three  hundred  translations  and  a circu- 
lation of  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  copies. 
But  this  spread  of  the  work  abroad  has  been  accom- 
panied— or  rather  has  grown  out  of — an  equally 
remarkable  and  blessed  growth  of  missionary  zeal, 
aggressiveness  and  benevolence  in  the  Church  at 
home.  Even  fifty  years  ago  missions  were  sup- 
posed to  be  of  doubtful  propriety.  Who  doubts  it 
to-day '?  All  these  societies  are  supported  well,  and 
women’s  societies  are  found  in  every  denomination 
and  pushing  their  work  in  almost  every  congrega- 
tion. In  1800  the  contributions  to  foreign  missions 
were  estimated  at  about  §250,000  per  annum.  To- 
day they  reach  the  magnificent  sum  of  §7,500,000, 
or  five  times  as  much  as  is  raised  by  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  all  over  the  world  for  the  support 
of  its  great  mission  Propaganda.  Does  anv  one 
suppose  the  benevolence  of  the  Church  has  reached 
its  limit?  Let  Thomas  Kane,  that  Chicago  “ Lay- 
man,” go  on  spreading  his  tracts,  and  the  Committee 
on  Systematic  Benevolence  publishing  volumes  like 
its  work  now  in  preparation  on  Proportional  Giving , 
and  we  have  no  more  seen  the  final  outcome  of 
charity  than  we  have  seen  the  maximum  of  revival 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


23 


power.  Give  us  two  hundred  years  of  this  enthu- 
siastic work  by  the  Church,  and  this  glorious  bless- 
ing on  the  work  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  what  will 
the  face  of  the  earth  be  in  A.  D.  2000?  While 
the  imagination  labors  to  conceive  of  the  transfor- 
mation, faith  exults  at  the  prospect.  The  world- 
field  is  indeed  white  for  the  harvest,  but  the  air 
is  resonant  with  the  sound  of  the  grinding  sickles 
and  the  earth  is  shaking  beneath  the  tread  of  the 
marching  reapers. 

Modern  Mission-work. 

But  this  line  of  argument  is  not  merely  applicable 
to  the  old  days  of  Augustine,  Colomba,  St.  Patrick 
and  the  wide  field  of  universal  missions.  It  will  set 
us  to  thinking  if  we  look  in  another  direction  and 
right  at  home.  When  the  West  and  South  stand 
up  before  the  great  churches  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  the  Atlantic  seaboard  to  petition  for 
missionaries  and  the  institutions  of  Christianity, 
they  are  met  with  a skeptical  inquisitiveness,  as 
much  as  to  say,  Is  there  any  just  ground  for  the 
hope  of  the  salvation  of  freedmen  or  the  civil- 
ization of  miners,  cowboys  and  border  settlers? 
Others  ask  why  these  braggart  Western  people  do 


24 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


not  build  their  own  churches,  support  their  own 
ministers  and  endow  their  own  colleges.  If  a look 
into  the  pit  whence  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestry  was 
digged  is  instructive,  it  will  prove  not  less  instruc- 
tive to  look  unto  that  rock  whence  these  Eastern 
churches  and  institutions  were  hewn.  Change  the 
names  and  dates,  and  the  letters  sent  by  the  early 
settlers  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania 
and  Maryland  to  their  kindred  in  England,  Scot- 
land and  Ireland,  asking  for  ministers  and  help  to 
build  churches,  will  answer  for  the  letters  sent  from 
Texas,  Colorado  and  Oregon  to  the  Home  Board 
to-day.  “In  1641,  Mr.  Bennett  of  Virginia 
visited  Boston  with  letters  to  New  England  min- 
isters bewailing  their  sad  condition  for  want  of 
the  glorious  gospel,  and  entreating  that  they  might 
thence  be  supplied.”  Makemie  crossed  the  ocean 
and  applied  for  aid  to  the  Presbyterian  Congrega- 
tional Union  of  London  for  more  laborers  “ for 
the  extensive  and  inviting  field  that  was  before 
him.”  That  application  was  not  in  vain,  for  a 
respectable  body  of  Dissenters  “ sent  out  two  evan- 
gelists to  labor  for  two  veal’s,  engaging  to  support 
them  and  to  send  out  others.”  Makemie  returned 
from  that  trip  in  1705.  Exactly  what  happens 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


25 


now  happened  then.  While  first-class  men  are 
needed  in  these  new  countries,  they  were  sometimes 
supplied  with  very  bad  ones,  who  did  more  harm 
than  good.  “We  want  a great  many  good  minis- 
ters here  in  America,”  wrote  Talbot  of  the  Episco- 
palian Church  back  to  England,  “ but  we  had  better 
have  none  at  all  thau  such  scandalous  beasts  as  some 
make  themselves.”  He  then  added  what  is  exactly 
true  of  your  new  country  now : “ Those  we  have 
to  deal  with  are  a sharp  and  inquisitive  people,  and 
we  must  have  something  reliable  if  we  hope  to  pre- 
vail with  them.”  Some  Western  Presbyteries  have 
indeed  a very  strange  mixture  of  ministers  from 
various  places,  and  often  with  very  peculiar  and 
diverse  antecedents ; but  there  is  not  one  of  them 
that  in  this  regard  will  surpass  the  first  Presbytery 
organized  in  America.  It  consisted  of  seven  min- 
isters. Makemie  was  a Scotch-Irishman ; Hamp- 
ton was  an  Irishman ; Macnish  was  a Scotchman 
(and  these  last  were  supported  by  Dissenters  in 
London) ; Andrews  was  a Massachusetts  man ; 
Wilson  was  a Scotchman  from  Connecticut  and 
believed  to  be  an  emissary  of  the  “ New  England 
doctors ;”  Taylor  is  of  uncertain  origin,  and  was 
pastor  of  a congregation  of  Independents ; Davis 


26 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


rarely  attended  Presbytery.  Yet  out  of  that  Pres- 
bytery the  East  grew  to  what  it  is  now.  In  1716 
that  Presbytery,  though  only  numbering  twenty- 
three,  was  divided  to  make  a Synod,  just  as  is  now 
done  in  the  West.  In  1718  this  Synod  sent  a formal 
appeal  to  the  mother-country,  saying : “ There  are 
still  many  vacancies  which  either  cry  to  us  for  help 
or  give  good  grounds  to  hope  that  if  they  could  be 
provided  with  an  able  and  faithful  ministry  the 
happy  effects  of  it  would  soon  appear.”  Our 
churches  in  New  York  City  are  as  grand  givers 
as  are  to  be  found  anywhere.  But  they  should  re- 
member that  when  in  1716  a church  was  organized 
and  a preacher  secured,  they  did  just  as  we  do. 
They  held  services  in  the  City  Hall  for  the  first 
three  years.  When,  in  1719,  they  built  a church 
on  Wall  street,  for  want  of  a Board  of  Church 
Erection  they  begged  money  from  Scotland,  and 
for  want  of  a Board  of  Home  Missions  they  ob- 
tained help  to  support  their  minister  from  the 
Glasgow  collection.  That  collection  was  taken  up 
by  the  direction  of  the  Scotch  Assembly.  In  their 
address  that  Assembly  says  what  is  still  true  : “ The 
servants  of  the  Lord,  who  labor  in  these  unculti- 
vated parts  of  his  vineyard,  have  great  and  enor- 


OUR  PIT  A SI)  OUR  ROCK. 


27 


mous  difficulties,  arising  partly  from  the  unhappy 
disposition  of  too  many  who  resort  to  such  places, 
and  partly  from  the  poor  circumstances  of  their 
respective  congregations.”  Under  date  of  June  1, 
1764,  “The  Corporation  of  the  City  of  Philadel- 
phia for  the  Relief  of  Poor  and  Distressed  Presby- 
terian Ministers,  and  of  their  Widows  and  Children,” 
voted  a letter  of  thanks  to  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Church  of  Scotland  for  the  charitable  donation 
of  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty  pounds 
four  shillings  eleven  pence  sterling.  To-day  Phil- 
adelphia, as  the  head-quarters  of  the  Board  of  Min- 
isterial Relief,  may  follow  Scotland’s  example. 

Church  Erection. 

The  following  figures  have  been  obtained  at  no 
small  labor,  that  this  argument  may  be  enforced. 
Since  the  establishment  of  a board  for  helping  to 
build  churches,  aid  has  been  given  to  churches  in 
Ohio  and  east  of  Ohio,  averaging  $407  to  1090 
churches,  or  a total  of  $445,914.  Shall  a region 
thus  helped  begrudge  help  to  regions  struggling  now 
as  they  have  been  heretofore?  Without  any  form 
of  words,  such  people  are  under  the  most  solemn 
moral  obligation  to  do  to  others  as  they  have  been 


28 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


done  by.  But  this  has  been  given  upon  a special 
contract,  that  these  churches  so  helped  shall  make 
a yearly  contribution  for  the  help  of  others.  It  is 
one  of  the  incomprehensible  mysteries  of  moral 
obliquity  that  some  of  these  churches  East  and 
West  assume  that  they  may  argue,  and  even  decide 
in  the  negative,  the  question  of  a collection.  For 
them  to  omit  that  collection  is  to  be  guilty  of  cove- 
nant-breaking. And  from  that  sin  no  minister, 
elder  or  member  of  such  a church  is  relieved  who 
does  not  send  a protest  of  innocence  in  the  shape 
of  a contribution. 


College  Aid. 

The  College  Aid  Board,  by  an  investigation,  is 
made  positively  certain  that  Emporia,  Parsons  and 
Longmont  are  as  straight  and  honest  efforts  as  any 
people  ever  made  to  establish  colleges  for  Kansas, 
Iowa  and  Colorado.  That  board  sends  the  repre- 
sentatives of  these  colleges,  and  others  just  as  good, 
to  ask  help  of  their  Eastern  friends.  These  incred- 
ulous friends,  thus  applied  to,  are  apt  to  sneer  at 
the  mode  of  determining  the  locution,  by  inquiring 
if  Western  colleges  are  damaged  goods  to  be  auc- 
tioned off  by  Synods  to  the  highest  bidder  for  the 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


29 


location.  Such  people  forget  history.  In  1746, 
Rev.  Jonathan  Dickinson  of  Elizabethtown,  N.  J., 
procured  a charter  for  his  academy,  calling  it  a 
college.  That  embryonic  institution  went  into 
operation  while  he  was  both  president  of  the  col- 
lege and  pastor  of  the  church,  in  true  Western 
style.  When  he  died,  the  next  year,  and  it  seemed 
desirable  to  put  the  college  under  the  care  of  Rev. 
Aaron  Burr  of  Newark,  it  was  found  easier  to 
move  the  college  than  to  move  the  preacher.  The 
whole  thing,  therefore,  was  moved  to  Newark. 
Here  again,  in  true  Western  style,  Burr  was  both 
pastor  and  president.  He  was  appointed  president, 
inaugurated  and  graduated  a class  all  the  same  day. 
These  public  exercises  were  held  in  the  courthouse. 
In  1752  the  trustees,  having  unsuccessfully  offered 
the  institution  to  New  Brunswick,  Elizabethtown 
and  Newark,  offered  it  to  Princeton  for  “two  hun- 
dred acres  of  woodland,  ten  acres  of  cleared  land 
and  one  thousand  pounds  proclamation  money.” 
How  towns  do  blunder ! Newark,  New  Bruns- 
wick and  Elizabethtown  are  understood  to  be  some- 
where in  the  vicinity  of  New  York.  But  who 
does  not  know  where  Princeton  is?  No  town  ever 
got  so  much  for  so  little.  But  that  §6000  was  as 


30 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


insufficient  for  the  wants  of  the  institution  as  a 
Western  town-gift  is  now.  Synod  took  it  up  and 
ordered  collections  for  it  in  all  the  churches.  In 
furtherance  of  the  same  policy,  Rev.  Gilbert  Ten- 
nent  and  Rev.  Samuel  Davies  were  sent  to  Eng- 
land. Then,  as  now,  colleges  picked  the  very  best. 
Davies  was  Virginia’s  favorite  preacher.  Amidst 
the  utmost  perplexities  and  discouragements  they 
worked  for  a year  through  England,  Scotland  and 
Ireland ; and  that  canvass,  though  amounting  to 
only  £5000  ($25,000),  “ placed  the  College  of  New 
Jersey  upon  a sure  basis,  and  cheered  the  hearts  of 
all  friendly  to  the  interests  of  ministerial  education 
and  the  Presbyterian  Church.”  In  May,  1754, 
the  Assembly  at  Edinburgh  appointed  a collection 
for  Princeton,  and  in  their  address  uttered  words 
which  are  true  everywhere:  “The  erecting  of  such 
a college  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  inter- 
ests of  learning  and  religion  in  that  infant  coun- 
try, and  what  the  deplorable  circumstances  of  the 
churches  do  greatly  require.”  The  crv  of  “ Too 
many  colleges,”  “ Let  us  concentrate  on  a few,”  was 
heard  then  just  as  it  is  heard  now  for  the  purpose 
of  discouraging  every  new  enterprise.  The  Scotch 
Assembly  therefore  said  further:  “As  the  difficulty, 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


31 


and  in  some  cases  the  impossibility,  of  sending  the 
youths  some  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  colleges  of 
New  England  is  evident,  so  from  the  College  of 
New  Jersey  alone  can  we  expect  a remedy  of  these 
inconveniences  and  a sufficient  supply  of  accom- 
plished ministers.”  If  the  policy  of  opposing  new 
institutions  in  new  sections  had  been  adopted  in 
that  day,  there  would  have  been  no  Princeton,  and 
the  East  would  have  been  without  Presbyterianism, 
as  the  West  will  be  if  it  is  left  without  colleges. 
Did  the  people  of  that  day  think  Princeton  was 
enough  for  the  whole  land?  By  1774,  Hampden- 
Siduev  had  been  started  in  East  Virginia,  and  Au- 
gusta Academy,  afterward  called  Liberty  Hall, 
since  called  Washington  College,  and  now  Wash- 
ington and  Lee  University,  was  opened  in  the 
mountains.  These  institutions  were  needed  then, 
but  not  one  whit  more  than  Macalister  and  Pierre, 
Dakota,  and  Salt  Lake  Institute  are  now. 

Resulting  Obligations. 

Are  there,  then,  no  responsibilities  on  those  who 
were  helped  in  those  days  of  their  weakness  by  the 
providence  of  God  through  distant  people?  In 
1846,  Ireland  was  starving  through  the  blight  of 


32 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


her  crops ; America  had  plenty,  and  by  the  ship- 
load she  sent  her  good  wishes  in  bread  for  the 
hungry.  Suppose  now  that  America  should  be 
blasted  and  Ireland  blessed,  would  there  be  no 
duty  growing  thence?  All  through  Ireland,  as  we 
journeyed  to  Belfast  last  summer  (1884),  they  said 
they  were  teaching  that  story  to  their  children  and 
waiting  and  watching  to  repay  that  debt  of  sweet 
charity.  In  1874,  Kansas  was  plagued  with  the 
locusts,  and  Ohio  was  not  stinted  in  sympathy.  In 
1884  the  Alleghany  Mountain  snows  and  the  rains 
of  the  Pennsylvania  hills  poured  themselves  into 
the  narrow  banks  of  the  Ohio  River.  Flooded 
villages  and  wrecked  cities  were  the  swift  result. 
It  was  now  Kansas’  time,  and  the  iron  horses 
snorted  on  her  Western  borders  as  they  started 
East,  gathering  car-loads  at  every  station;  but  they 
gave  out,  overloaded,  long  before  they  reached  the 
Missouri  River.  Their  decoration  was  unique,  but 
very  suggestive.  On  every  car  was  some  device 
expressive  of  the  very  best  phase  of  Christian 
humanity.  This  is  a sample  of  these  devices : an 
immense  grasshopper,  harnessed  to  an  enormous 
ear  of  corn,  looking  at  a fingerboard  pointing  to 
Cincinnati.  Shall  now  floods  and  corn  bring  out 


OUR  riT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


33 


a charity  and  reciprocity  outstripping  religion  and 
education  ? 

God’s  Mode  of  Reciprocation. 

It  rarely  comes  to  pass  that  gratitude  can  repay 
favors  to  the  giver.  God’s  way  is  to  demand  that 
what  we  receive  shall  he  transmitted  to  others  need- 
ing similar  kindness.  The  patient  watching  of  a 
mother  over  her  children  is  not  often  to  be  repaid 
to  her  in  a second  childhood  of  old  age.  But  into 
our  homes  our  children  come  to  be  watched  over  as 
our  parents  watched  over  us.  Our  fathers  built  the 
schools  where  we  were  taught,  and  it  is  ours  to  see 
that  none  shall  go  untaught  of  our  successors.  In 
2 Tim.  2 : 2 three  generations  of  teachers  are  brought 
to  view  in  the  apostle’s  standing  order  of  trans- 
mitted Christian  education  : “ The  things  which 
thou  hast  seen  and  heard  of  me,  the  same  commit 
thou  to  faithful  men,  who  shall  be  able  to  teach 
others  also.”  Obedience  to  that  order  by  Gregory, 
Augustine  and  their  forty  monks  was  the  salvation 
of  our  ancestry  and  ourselves.  Obedience  to  that 
by  the  Christians  of  the  mother-country  was  the 
salvation  of  this  country  when  order  was  to  be 
brought  out  of  chaos  and  civilization  to  be  builded 

3 


34 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


in  the  presence  of  barbarism.  Undoubtedly,  the 
revivals  which  marked  the  opening  of  this  century 
were  the  immediate  forces  which  saved  this  country 
from  the  contagion  of  French  infidelity;  but  those 
revivals  largely  started  in  the  schools  and  colleges, 
and  in  the  hearts  of  ministers  and  elders,  who,  bur- 
dened with  anxiety  for  the  Church  of  God,  toiled 
and  gave  to  raise  up  a consecrated  as  well  as  an 
educated  ministry.  Wherever  we  turn  God  speaks 
to  us  by  these  voices  of  the  mighty  dead,  and  if  we 
fail  to  hear  we  shall  prove  ourselves  to  be  degen- 
erate sons  of  noble  sires,  as  well  as  disobedient  lead- 
ers of  the  militant  host  of  God’s  elect. 

The  West  Defined. 

It  may  be  said — and  its  truth  is  at  once  admitted 
— that  thus  far  we  have  been  only  going  on  the 
level  of  a sanctified  human  gratitude.  But  this  is 
precisely  that  to  which  the  evangelical  prophet  is 
appealing,  and  whatever  is  good  enough  for  the 
Bible  is  always  good  enough  for  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  Let  us,  however,  add  to  this  that  other 
principle  to  which  Paul  appeals  in  the  other  text 
and  elsewhere.  To  him  all  the  world  was  one  great 
brotherhood,  unto  whom  he  was  under  a divine  ob- 


OUR  PIT  AXB  OUR  ROCK. 


35 


ligation  to  preach  the  gospel.  So  binding  did  he 
esteem  it  that  he  calls  it  not  a benevolence,  but  a 
debt.  So  Christ  said,  ‘‘Freelv  ye  have  received, 
freely  give.”  After  that  the  eighth  commandment 
covers  the  case,  and  we  are  under  no  less  obligation 
to  pay  back  borrowed  money  than  we  are  to  dis- 
pense this  gospel  to  the  inhabitants  of  heathendom 
and  home-land.  Obedience  is  simple  integritv  and 
neglect  is  dishonesty. 

What,  now,  is  your  definition  of  the  West? 
Whatever  description  others  may  give,  this  is  the 
true  definition  : The  West  is  the  active  member  of 
that  copartnership  entered  into,  by  which  those  who 
stay  at  home  shall  furnish  the  ground  capital,  and 
those  who  go  shall  furnish  the  work  and  take  the 
risks  in  utilizing  the  landed  estate  of  this  nation. 
Western  railroads  are  mainly  owned  East  of  the 
Alleghanies.  Xearly  half  of  the  land  cultivated  in 
t ic  West  is  either  owned  outright  in  the  East  or  cov- 
ered over  with  Eastern  mortgages.  Colorado  mines 
are  rich,  but  the  most  of  the  good  ones  are  owned 
East  and  worked  by  agents.  The  cattle  business  is 
good,  but  the  stock  is  largely  owned  East.  A careful 
and  painstaking  estimate  calculates  that  one-fifth  of 
the  tax  value  of  the  farm-lands  of  Kansas  is  East- 


36 


OUR  RIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


era  capital  loaned  on  mortgage.  In  addition  to  this 
there  are  $400,000,000  invested  in  her  railroads. 
The  big  wheat-farms  of  Dakota  are  owned  East. 
If,  now,  the  West  asks  the  East  to  help  to  build 
churches  and  colleges,  it  is  not  begging.  I utterly 
repudiate  that  word.  It  is  but  asking  justice.  It 
is  but  asking  the  silent  partner  to  contribute  his 
share  to  promote  the  welfare  of  the  enterprise. 
Will  it  be  asked,  How  could  the  West  get  on  with- 
out this  capital  ? I ask,  How  could  the  East  get 
on  with  it?  The  East  is  so  overrun  with  capital 
now  that  money  brings  but  a small  net  return. 
Call  back  all  that  is  in  the  West,  and  England's 
three  per  cent,  will  be  a high  return.  The  West  is 
no  more  benefited  than  the  East.  The  Eastern 
capitalists  do  not  invest  West  as  a benevolent  en- 
terprise. Western  railroads  are  not  run  as  charities 
by  Eastern  stockholders  and  bondholders.  Eastern 
money  is  loaned  to  Western  farmers  on  an  iron-clad 
mortgage.  Wheat  and  corn  may  go  up  or  down, 
skies  may  drown  the  land  by  floods  or  burn  it 
with  drought,  but  the  seven  per  ceut.  net  must  come 
East  in  quarterly  payments.  If,  now,  a tenth  of 
the  increase  is  God’s,  then  a tenth  of  that  seven  ]>er 
cent,  net  which  the  East  gets  from  the  West  ought 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


37 


to  go  back  to  the  cause  of  God  and  humanity  in 
the  West.  This  is  simple  equity.  Less  than  that 
is  robbery. 


National  Self-Inter est. 

But  now  turn  your  eyes  to  the  nation’s  capital, 
and  you  are  confronted  with  another  most  import- 
ant consideration.  It  adds  self-interest  to  this 
claim  of  justice  which  has  been  piled  on  top  of  the 
former  plea  of  gratitude.  The  West  has  votes. 
When  the  President  is  elected  they  count.  Their 
Senators  equal  yours.  Their  Representatives  are 
increasing  faster  in  proportion  than  those  of  the 
East.  If  that  West  grows  corrupt,  the  East  cannot 
remain  untouched.  The  nation  will  break  the 
Sabbath  with  its  mails  till  the  West  unites  with 
the  East  to  demaud  again  this  day  of  rest.  The 
saloons  will  continue  in  the  basement  of  the  Capitol 
beneath  the  houses  of  Congress,  in  defiance  of  their 
authority,  till  both  East  and  West  demand  that  the 
statue  of  the  nation’s  liberty  shall  not  rest  upon 
that  charnel-house  of  the  nation’s  children — the 
law-breaking  American  saloon.  When  December 
brings  around  the  time  for  the  collection  for  the 
freedmen,  not  a few  ministers  and  more  elders 


38 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


shrug  their  shoulders,  and  in  practice  say,  What 
business  lias  our  Church  with  these  black  people  ? 
But  with  our  help  or  against  our  protest  they  were 
made  voters.  If  they  are  neglected,  despised  and 
downtrodden  as  freedmen,  you  and  I shall  not 
escape  unscathed.  No  more  terrible  words  were 
ever  uttered  by  uninspired  lips  than  those  Lincoln 
uttered  in  the  face  of  this  nation  amidst  the  gloom 
that  surrounded  his  second  inauguration  : “ If  God 
wills  that  this  war  shall  continue  till  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  the  bondsmen’s  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until 
every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be 
paid  by  another  drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said 
three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  must  it  be  said, 
The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.”  If  that  suggestion  of  the  divine  mean- 
ing of  that  war  is  accepted,  then  we  must  say  that 
in  his  true  and  righteous  judgment  God  distributed 
the  strokes  of  his  chastising-rod  with  wonderful 
impartiality.  The  debt  of  the  North,  the  losses  of 
the  South  and  the  dead  and  maimed  of  both  sides 
tell  the  story  of  their  conjoint  sin.  There  are 
7,000,000  freedmen.  That  means  1,000,000  votes. 
Let  them  remain  an  ignorant  multitude — not  slaves 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


39 


of  men,  but  slaves  of  ignorance,  vice,  liquor  and 
political  tricksters — and  every  home  in  this  nation 
shall  share  the  plague  of  the  evil  consequences. 

Selfishness  may  neglect  the  rude  crowd  or  seek 
to  make  favor  by  applauding  its  demand,  but  in 
the  end  that  unfaithfulness  in  a dangerous  duty 
costs  sorely.  In  a heedless  way  some  of  their  pa- 
pers and  much  of  the  public  echoed  the  imperious 
words  of  the  Pittsburgh  mob  in  1877,  but  for  that 
mob’s  destruction  of  property  Allegheny  County 
paid  about  $2,850,000.  In  the  spring  of  last  year 
the  Cincinnati  rabble  seized  the  leadership  of  the 
public  protest  against  the  corrupt  administration  of 
the  criminal  law  by  those  the  criminals  had  elected. 
Now,  those  who  left  part  of  the  officials  unencour- 
aged to  face  the  howling  rioters  at  the  courthouse, 
and  those  who  from  their  houses  heaped  epithets 
and  pistol  shots  on  the  Fourteenth  Regiment  as 
they  marched  through  the  streets  at  midnight,  are 
paying  their  taxes  to  rebuild  the  burned  public 
buildings. 


Home  Missions. 

You  say,  What  are  home  missions  to  me?  They 
are  this  to  this  nation  : Yon  have  consigned  to  that 


40 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


board  the  whole  of  that  Mexican  population  in  that 
territory  stolen  from  Mexico,  and  their  men  are 
voters.  To  that  board  you  have  consigned  the 
Mormons,  and,  so  far  as  they  could  do  it,  they  have 
made  in  Utah  both  men  and  women  voters.  With 
a theology  invented  by  the  devil  and  a system  of 
morals  invented  by  lust — with  a treasury  replen- 
ished by  forced  tithes  and  a population  overflowing 
everywhere  from  polygamy  and  foreign  proselytism 
— this  organized  cancer  of  adultery  is  diseasing 
the  land  with  its  filthy  saturation  of  the  ignorant 
stratum  of  society.  To  fight  against  that  foaming 
flood  of  sensuality,  sorrow  and  sin,  led  on  bv  an 
unscrupulous  and  energetic  hierarchy,  you  have  set 
our  board  with  its  teachers  and  preachers.  In  point 
of  numbers  Marathon  was  not  a more  unequal 
combat.  Is,  then,  the  issue  of  the  struggle  a mat- 
ter of  indifference  to  you  as  citizens  and  Christians? 
To  our  honor  be  it  said  that  through  this  board  we 
as  a denomination  are  doing  about  twice  as  much 
as  any  other  denomination,  if  not  as  much  as  all 
the  rest  together.  This  foolish  nation,  which  is 
afraid  of  the  leprosy  of  Chinese  immigration  on 
the  Pacific  coast,  opens  wide  its  Atlantic  door  to 
this  leprosy  of  Mormon  proselytes.  While  Con- 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


41 


grosses  solemnly  debate,  and  Presidents  blatantly 
threaten,  and  the  Mormons  go  on  proselytizing  and 
spreading,  it  is  not  strange  that  disgusted  voters 
grow  discouraged  and  ashamed  in  the  struggle. 
But,  whoever  gives  up  the  fight,  the  Presbyterian 
Church  is  bound  to  hold  on  in  her  persevering, 
steadfast  way.  The  uatiou  is  lost,  and  we  with  it, 
if  we  do  not. 

Besides  all  this,  what  are  our  mission  churches 
and  our  missionaries?  They  are  the  workers  where 
morality  is  weak  and  vice  strong,  where  society  is 
just  taking  shape  and  evil  has  the  field.  In  the 
cities  they  are  the  ministers  and  churches  often 
located  where  it  is  sure  that  as  soon  as  their  people 
get  much  money  they  will  move  away  from  them. 
Go  into  one  of  these  city  mission-churches  and  ask 
after  their  members  still  resident  in  the  same  city. 
You  will  often  find  among  them  wealthy  Christian 
families  in  up-town  churches  who  owe  everything 
they  are  in  this  world  and  all  their  hopes  for  the 
next  to  the  religion  which  they  first  enjoyed  in  that 
humble  church  at  which  they  now  sneer.  It  makes 
the  blood  tingle  in  our  finger-tips  to  hear  such 
people  complain  of  such  a church  “that  it  is 
always  on  the  board,”  and  “ under  that  pastor  it 


42 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


will  never  become  self-supporting.”  That  was  the 
hole  out  of  which  they  were  digged.  Let  no  man 
slander  his  mother.  If  those  converted  in  it  had 
stood  by  it,  the  board  would  have  been  done  with 
it  long  ago.  The  rich  churches  will  die  out  if  we 
abandon  these  missions.  Money  seldom  stays  in 
the  same  family  in  this  country  more  than  three 
generations.  • As  soon  as  a poor  family  is  converted 
aud  joins  the  Presbyterian  Church,  they  cease  squan- 
dering their  money  on  vice.  They  become  thrifty 
and  industrious,  and  start  on  that  road  up  to  wealth 
on  which  they  meet  coming  downward  the  godless, 
spendthrift  children  of  past  generations.  City  mis- 
sions for  city  churches  are  not  a mere  matter  of 
benevolence ; they  are  means  of  self-preservation 
as  well. 


Christ  Disguised. 

But,  fathers  and  brethren,  we  may  not  omit  an- 
other consideration  of  much  higher  moment  than 
these  of  gratitude  and  self-interest  which  have  been 
passing  before  us.  The  apostle’s  phrase,  “ I am  a 
debtor,”  includes  these;  but  a debt  calls  for  two 
persons.  The  creditor  must  have  done  something 
for  the  debtor  or  he  could  not  be  his  debtor.  There 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


43 


can  no  more  be  a debtor  without  a creditor  than 
there  can  be  a child  without  a parent.  So  the 
prophet  speaks  in  the  passive  voice  when  lie  says 
“ are  hewn  ” and  “ are  digged.”  But  the  cut  stone 
tells  of  a stonemason,  and  the  treasure  dug  up  in- 
volves some  one  who  did  that  digging.  The  form 
of  the  first  part  of  the  verse  shows  that  the  prophet 
was  here  speaking  in  the  name  of  that  quarryman 
among  stony  hearts  and  that  gold-miner  among 
these  human  mountains.  The  prophet  and  the 
apostle  both  gloried  in  that  Messiah  by  whom 
they  had  been  redeemed.  To  them  he  was  the 
workman  who  had  lifted  them  out  of  the  mirv  clay 
and  the  sculptor  who  was  chiseling  them  into  his 
own  beautiful  image.  This  runs  through  the  whole 
of  revelation.  Augustine  was  but  Christ  going  to 
the  Anglo-Saxons,  as  our  missionaries  are,  but  this 
same  Christ  speaking  to  the  nations.  Each  one  of 
you  claims  this  representative  character  when  to  the 
perishing  you  repeat  in  his  name  his  words,  “ He 
that  believeth  shall  be  saved.”  You  have  a right 
to  speak  by  authority,  and  within  your  commission 
from  him  as  his  agent  you  have  a right  to  bind  him 
by  contract  with  the  sinner. 

But  if  this  be  true,  the  converse  is  also  true.  If 


44 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


Jesus  Christ  has  identified  himself  with  us  as  to 
the  world,  so  that  “ he  that  receiveth  us  receiveth 
him,  and  he  that  rejecteth  us  rejecteth  him,”  so 
also,  as  to  us,  he  has  identified  himself  with  these 
perishing  souls  the  wide  world  over.  What  we  do 
to  them  we  do  to  him.  Are  you  startled  by  my 
saying  that  the  negro  is  Christ,  and  the  Mexican  is 
Christ,  and  the  Chinaman  is  Christ?  You  seem  to 
think  that  Christ  can  only  come  to  you  in  the 
brightness  of  his  deity.  So  the  Jews  blundered  iu 
the  days  of  his  incarnation.  We  hold  them  inex- 
cusable, because  he  had  iu  his  prophecies  told  them 
exactly  in  what  likeness  he  would  come.  But  he 
has  just  as  plainly  told  us  in  what  disguise  he  will 
come  to  us.  If  we  had  been  left  to  look  out  for 
him  in  the  likeness  of  a God,  and  he  had  then  come 
in  the  garb  of  degradation,  we  might  have  been 
excusable.  Instead  of  this,  he  has  said  he  would 
come  to  us  hungry  and  thirsty  and  naked  and  sick 
and  in  prison.  There  we  are  to  look  for  him.  He 
has  said  that  in  the  person  of  his  own  he  would 
come  to  receive  the  fruits  of  that  rich  vineyard 
which  he  would  let  out  to  us.  Here,  then,  is  a 
paradox  in  the  kingdom  of  God  : Christ  is  on  both 
sides  of  us;  he  is  behind  us  in  the  ancestry  and 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


45 


charity  and  missions  by  which  we  have  been  made 
Christians.  He  is  before  ns  in  the  neglected  at 
home  and  the  perishing  abroad  whom  lie  has  sent ' 
ns  to  evangelize.  We  may  not,  indeed,  send 
missionaries  to  Augustine  and  Colomba  and  St. 
Patrick,  and  money  to  those  who  gave  American 
Presbyterianism  a start ; but  sending  money  and 
missionaries  to  those  who  to-day  need  them  is  send- 
ing them  to  the  Christ  who  blessed  us  in  Augustine. 
Unbelief  still  asks,  “Can  any  good  thing  come  out 
of  Nazareth?”  Yet,  as  out  of  that  unlikely  vil- 
lage of  Nazareth  the  Christ  actually  did  come,  so 
out  of  these  to  us  unlikely  races  and  nations  most 
notable  representatives  of  Christ  have  come,  are 
coming  and  shall  come.  The  African  is  a byword, 
yet  that  other  Augustine,  bishop  of  Hippo  (who, 
following  Paul,  was  a Calvinist  before  Calvin),  was 
an  African  of  Numidia.  It  is  but  recently  that 
the  Sandwich  Islanders  were  like  their  brethren  of 
the  Southern  Pacific  seas.  To-day  they  are  thor- 
oughly Christian.  Bunyan  was  once  only  a pro- 
fane tinker,  and  yet  in  his  dreams  he  painted  for 
the  whole  Church  the  pilgrimage  to  the  Celestial 
City. 


46 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


Behoi.d  Cheist  ! 

The  difficulty,  however,  is  not  in  our  intellectual 
belief  that  what  is  done  for  his  sake  is  recognized 
by  Christ  as  done  to  himself.  The  real  difficulty  is 
in  making  ourselves  so  continuously  conscious  of  it 
as  to  see  the  Christ  in  those  with  whom  we  are 
dealing.  We  need  to  see  in  their  filthy  hands  the 
pierced  hands  of  Jesus — in  their  ignorance  Jesus 
bewildered  in  the  darkness.  As  we  read  of  the 
hospitality  of  Martha  and  Mary,  we  covet  their 
opportunity.  As  we  think  of  his  betrayal  and 
arrest,  we  could  wish  that  we  had  been  there  to 
smite  like  Peter.  All  that,  however,  is  mere  empty 
sentimentalism.  Look  around  you.  For  you  there 
is  Christ  in  every  impenitent  soul,  rich  or  poor, 
with  whom  you  come  in  contact.  Yonder  is  Christ 
in  every  heathen  nation.  You  do,  indeed,  see  in 
their  darkness  the  hole  of  the  pit  whence  you  were 
taken,  but  do  you  not  remember  how  quickly  Christ 
could  transfigure  himself?  So  now,  on  the  instant, 
he  is  for  you  in  that  same  gloom,  calling  with  other 
voices  for  your  help.  Look,  then,  again,  and 
listen,  and  you  shall  see  his  face  and  hear  his  voice 
in  every  one  whose  case  calls  for  the  gospel.  Lift 
up  your  eyes  again  and  bend  your  ears  in  sharp 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


47 


attention,  and  you  shall  detect  that  same  divine 
face,  and  that  same  holy  voice  calling  you  to  him 
in  heathen  lands.  It  is  an  old  hvmn,  and  we  often 
sing  it ; and  when  we  sing  it  1 hope  we  shall  sing 
it  with  this  revision  of  the  version : 

“ Shall  we,  whose  souls  Christ  lighted 
With  wisdom  from  on  high — 

Shall  we  to  Christ’s  benighted 
The  lamp  of  life  deny  ?” 

Not  one  whit  more  actually  does  this  Assembly 
represent  the  Presbyterian  Church  than  do  those 
multitudes  in  heathendom  represent  Christ  to  us. 
In  their  name,  then,  and  his,  I call  on  this  Assembly, 
representing  the  Presbyterian  Church,  six  hundred 
thousand  strong,  to  rally  to  his  work  and  rescue.  By 
our  own  past  Druid  heathenism — by  our  own  present 
Christian  civilization — -for  the  sake  of  them  of  whom 
He  spake,  and  for  His  sake  who  said,  “Inasmuch  as 
ye  did  it  to  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye 
did  it  unto  me,”  I cedi  for  a neiv  consecration  unto 
Christ  in  his  cause  and  kingdom.  Of  that  self-con- 
secration Christ  has  given  us  both  the  example  and 
the  measure.  Come  with  me  to  another  assembly  rep- 
resenting the  whole  Church  of  God  in  New- Testa- 
ment times.  The  first  Christian  Sabbath  is  closing. 


48 


OUR  PIT  AND  OUR  ROCK. 


Ills  followers,  bewildered  by  the  day's  rumors  of  an 
empty  tomb,  a frightened  watch  and  a risen  Master, 
are  in  their  hiding-place  for  fear  of  the  Jews.  Lo  ! 
into  that  presence  comes  that  very  Christ  who  watches 
us  to-day.  Fathers  and  brethren,  mark  and 

MEASURE  HIS  WORDS  AND  ACTS  : “ PEACE  BE  UNTO 

you.”  The  Church  shall  never  see  darker 
DAYS  THAN  THE  THREE  LAST  GONE.  “As  MY 
Father  hath  sent  me” — what  a measure 
OF  CONSECRATION  ! — “ As  MY  FATHER  HATH  SENT 
ME,  EVEN  SO  SEND  I YOU.”  HoW,  AT  THAT  LAST 
WORD,  EVERY  HEART  MUST  SINK  IN  CONSCIOUS- 
NESS OF  INCAPACITY  ! BUT  WATCH  HIM  NOW. 

He  over  whom,  at  his  Jordan  baptism,  the 
HEAVENS  OPENED,  AND  ON  WHOM  THE  HOLY 
Ghost  came  without  measure,  now  breathes 
ON  them  and  us,  and  speaks  these  words  of 
power  : “ Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost.” 

O MASTER!  SO  SEND  BY  THY  RE- 
SISTLESS POWER  THIS  BELOVED  PRES- 
BYTERIAN CHURCH!  0 MASTER!  SO 
BREATHE  THY  HOLY  GHOST  ON  THIS 
CHURCH  THAT  EVERY  SINGLE  SOUL 
SHALL  FEEL  THAT  “ ITS  MISSION  IN 
THIS  WORLD  IS  MISSIONS.” 


